In Illinois, Edgar County buck could be new world record

The silence surrounding the giant buck taken in Illinois by an out-of-state hunter early in the season has been broken.

And in a big way.

The official score for Luke Brewster’s nontypical archery kill was announced at the 2019 ATA Show in Louisville, Ky., on Thursday. On it’s Facebook page, the DNR called it a new U.S. record buck, saying that the score “also positions the buck to be an all-time world record as both the top nontypical bow kill and the top hunter-harvested whitetail of all time.”

Up to now, little has been said or shared about the deer taken by Brewster, a resident of Virginia. It is known that it was harvested Nov. 2 in Edgar County.

According to the Boone and Crockett Club and the Pope and Young Club, “After the required 60-day drying period and consultation with both scoring organizations, the official entry score of 320-5/8 makes it only the fifth hunter-taken nontypical whitetail to exceed 300 inches in history. If verified at this score, the buck would be the third-largest nontypical whitetail in Boone and Crockett and the new Pope and Young world record.”

The world record and No. 2 all-time nontypical whitetail deer recognized by B&C are picked-up trophies scoring 333-7/8 and 328-2/8 and were found in Missouri and Portage County, Ohio. The largest hunter-taken – and current No. 3 – nontypical whitetail on record scored 312 and was taken by Stephen L. Tucker from Sumner County, Tennessee in 2016.

“To put Luke’s deer in perspective, this deer could surpass our current world’s record that has stood for 18 years by more than 20 inches,” said Eli Randall, director of Big Game Records for the Pope and Young Club.

The current P&Y world record was taken by Michael Beatty from Green County, Ohio, in 2000, scoring 294 points. The second-largest on record is a deer taken in 1962 in Nebraska by Del Austin with a score of 279-7/8.

Using the Boone and Crockett Club system of scoring, the Pope and Young Club maintains the records for all archery-taken trophies. Boone and Crockett recognizes trophies taken by all legal hunting methods, as well as picked-up or found trophies.

The 38-point buck has a gross typical frame of 151-5/8 with 178-3/8 inches of abnormal points. After an accepted entry score, all potential world-record entries for each organization are verified by a panel of official measurers. A panel of B&C and P&Y measurers is being scheduled to verify the buck’s measurements.

For more, see the Jan. 25 issue of Illinois Outdoor News.

It was one of two monster nontypical bucks taken in Illinois during the recent deer seasons. In southern Illinois, Keith Szablewski, of Johnston City, harvested a buck with a non-typical rack of 51 points, of which at least 30 were scorable, during the first weekend of the firearms deer season.